Matt Blackey knows exactly what he has to do to establish himself on the European Tour - hit the ball longer!

Although the 33-year-old Southampton-based golfer is one of the straightest hitters on the tour, he admits he has got to find at least another ten yards in 2005.

"Unless you're hitting the ball around 280-290 yards, you are struggling," says Blackey.

"The advances in modern equipment and the way they are setting the courses up mean you have to hit the ball longer to get yourself into contention and it was something I wasn't doing enough last year."

Blackey paid the price, having to go back to Tour School in November, where he bravely scrambled for one of the last cards.

It means he's guaranteed starts in the smaller tournaments this year but not the bigger, more lucrative events like the Volvo PGA Championships.

He'll only figure in them if he makes the top ten in the May re-rank of Tour School graduates.

So the winter months have been spent largely in the gym, where he has been building up back, shoulder and arm muscles. "I need to get stronger to hit the ball longer," he says.

On Thursday the former Hampshire champion will play in the first European Tour event of the year, the South African Open in Durban, where he hopes to benefit from his first real break from golf for years.

"Usually during the winter I go off somewhere warm and practise but this winter I went off to Canada and did some skiing.

"I forgot about golf for a few weeks and I got back feeling so refreshed that I couldn't wait to pick up the golf clubs again."

But because he finished outside the top 115 in the order of merit last season, this week's South African event is the only one he's likely to play in the next month.

"The Tour goes off to Singapore then Australia and New Zealand and I won't make it into any of them," says Blackey. "I've got a chance of getting into the Malaysian Open in the middle of February but even that isn't guaranteed.

"It means that when I do play, I have got to make cuts and finish as high as I can so I can make the top ten in the May re-rank. If I can do that, then a lot more tournaments will open up for me."

Blackey already has over 3,000 euros on the board after finishing 48th in the Dunhill Championship, also in South Africa, last month.

Last year he managed only two top 20 finishes and admits: "I wasn't in contention enough even though I made a lot of cuts.

"My goals this year are just to keep my card and that's going to be even tougher than last year when I played a lot more tournament.

"I'm just going to have to make every one count this time around."